French President Francois Hollande said on Friday he would carry out his pledge to withdraw combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of the year, two years earlier than previously planned. He made the declaration to US President Barack Obama in the Oval Office.
The leaders, meeting for the first time, also agreed that managing the eurozone debt crisis is critical to global financial health.
Obama said this weekend’s gathering of G8 economic powers at Camp David would promote a “strong growth agenda.”
Hollande, elected on May 6, is insisting on rethinking a European austerity treaty, but he is also -trying to convince Obama and other leaders at the G8 economic summit that his position will not worsen the debt crisis.
The US supports an expansion of growth or stimulus programs in combination with belt--tightening measures. However, Hollande is on record as wanting to go much further.
On Afghanistan, a compromise appeared likely that would see 3,300 French troops shift from combat roles earlier than once planned, but leave a French presence in Afghanistan in a different role.
Speaking after the White House meeting, Hollande said he stood by a campaign pledge to withdraw troops, but said France would keep supporting that country in a “different way.”
Hollande’s visit marked the start of four days of international summitry that amount to a national security debut for a leader with little international experience.
Obama was taking the measure of the new French leader whose campaign promises run counter to US policy on both economic issues and Afghanistan. The White House has stressed the areas of agreement and predicted Hollande would continue Sarkozy’s strong alliance with the US on Iran.
Hollande is trying to defend France’s interests while building a relationship with Obama, widely popular in France, but seen by some in Hollande’s camp as too friendly with the his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy.
“The stances that President Hollande took during the course of his campaign obviously he intends to keep as president, but I at this point frankly see a good relationship building,” national security adviser Tom Donilon said on Thursday.
Hollande’s campaign platform, released months ago, said he was committed to an “immediate withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan: There will be no French troops in this country at the end of 2012.”
However, two weeks ago, at a news conference, he tempered that stance by saying French “combat units” would be out by the end of the year.
French troops have dug in, so getting out before the rest of NATO does would not be easy. France has about 900 vehicles, 1,400 industrial containers, plus Mirage fighters and helicopters in Afghanistan, French military spokesman Colonel Thierry Burkhard said.
Hollande’s foreign policy advisers suggest that could mean French advisers, or trainers for Afghan forces, remain after combat forces depart.
A senior US official said the early combat exits of Dutch and Australian troops are the model for a probable agreement with France. In those cases, trainers or other support forces were supplanting front-line combat forces. Such an agreement is likely to emerge from NATO discussions this weekend, the US official said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS